


Sleipnir

by Wanderbird



Series: This World Could Yet Be Kind [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Loki got pregnant, Marvel Norse Lore, Mentions of Prisoner Abuse, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Thor: The Dark World, and I'm really not sure how to tag that?, forced pregnancy mention, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 01:25:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18325880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: When Loki escapes prison and frolics around in a nice fun shape that won't be immediately recognized, something happens that they didn't expect: Svadilfari gets them pregnant.This makes staying out of prison about a million times harder, and a million times more important, so Loki finally decides to ask for help.Nobody is quite certain how to feel about this.





	Sleipnir

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Thunder clapped alongside Thor’s anger. Confusion? Probably anger.  
Loki sighed in blatant exasperation. “I did nothing, brother dear, I—”  
“Loki’s pregnant.” This interruption came from Heimdall, standing at attention, hands folded on the hilt of his sword and golden eyes narrowed. “Also, she escaped her imprisonment in the palace. None of the guards are dead or permanently damaged, Loki left an illusion in her place, or I would have sent her straight back to Odin’s hands.” Loki rolled her eyes at this. While she would have loved to do more than knock them out, it seemed to be death, specifically, which Odin noticed, and she was far too weak for drawing attention to herself to be a good plan.  
 “But… sister,” Thor hesitated. “You do not appear to be with child.”  
Of all the idiotic—“You do realize that women typically have a smooth transition between appearing normal and having a belly the size of a large dog?” Loki retorted. “Because if you do not, I’m afraid our dear mother must have failed dreadfully in your education.”  
“It’s a glamour,” Heimdall said flatly.  
Don’t—Loki glowered at that comment. “You always have to come along and ruin all the fun, don’t you? You can’t just let my idiot brother suffer in wondering.” She huffed. “Thor, I need a ride.”  
Silence.  
“What,” she teased, “the insufferable All-Seer isn’t about to jump in and ruin the whole game again?” the smile dropped, replaced by the rarity of steady eye contact, mischief-green against Thor’s earnest blue. “Please, brother. I refuse to give birth to this child within the confines of Asgard’s prisons, and I won’t allow it to be taken from me and raised like some inglorious whelp. The child is _mine_ and mine alone.”  
Thor frowned. “Why should I? You are in prison for good reason, it is hardly my authority to—” his words trailed off, some dark realization stirring in his face. Concern sparkled cold in Thor’s eyes. “Sister. Did… ” the god bit his lip. “Were you still in prison when you were impregnated? Because if this was done without your consent…”  
Finally, Loki couldn’t help the thought, finally that oaf realizes the realities of the situation. Thor may be a fool with far more faith in his comrades than they deserved, but he had never been slow. A frigid smile traced her lips. “Now why would that matter to you? You are the one who handed me over to Asgardian justice, after all. _You_ are the one never visited me, were always too busy with Midgardian affairs to so much as _speak_ to me. If your wretched father forced me to bear _twenty_ children before this day, you would never have known.”  
Silence.

At last, Thor answered, biting his lip out of obvious discomfort. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have known.” He took a breath. “But I do now. Heimdall, when did she escape?”  
“I do not know the exact date, your Majesty. I cannot watch all places at all times. The best I can say is several months ago.”  
A sigh. “I suppose I will have to rely on your truthfulness, dear sister. Were you… impregnated at the time of your escape? Or did that come after.”  
Loki’s response bitter, and not without hesitation. “I swear to you, Thor. Brother. I did not choose that… _this_ should be thrust upon me.” Nevermind that the deed had in fact occurred shortly _after_ her escape, and not… entirely without consent. Or rather, the pregnancy specifically had been without her consent. The deed which initiated it was up for debate. The issue, however, was that she could not shapeshift far from her usual Asgardian form while this parasite resided in her body unless she wished to kill it, which she did not, unless it was back into the form of a mare, which she refused to remain in for the next twelve months. While it had yet been a mere handful of cells, yes, she could yet change her form and have it suffer no undue harm, but now that it had begun to take shape on its own? Her choices were something with a Jotun’s biology, or a horse. Besides, a child would make an excellent distraction for a few decades, give her something to do while she waited under everyone’s watchful eye, and what’s more, she always did enjoy acts of creation. But of course, if she left the hidden shelter to which she had escaped in even vaguely humanoid form, Heimdall would be sure to have noticed her—and she did not have nearly enough resources stashed within that cave to simply wait within its walls until the child was born.  
“Then I will ensure no further harm shall come to you at Asgard’s hands.” Hands clasped like irons about the trickster’s shoulders, as Thor gave a final nod. “Your dedication to duty does you credit, Heimdall. I will take Loki back to Midgard with me, but you must ensure that no other is aware of her escape. Loki…” his hands tightened. “Thank you for trusting me. I know you do not like the idea of returning to Midgard, but—I have business I must attend to there, and do not trust that I can leave you with no watcher. You made the right decision.” When Heimdall turned the sword in its lock, Thor led his sister into the Bïfrost’s light, leaving behind only a vague sense of uneasiness and the memory of a serpentine smile.

~~~

Tony opened the door the roof, expecting an armored and ludicrously muscular blonde demigod. What he got was…  
“Who the hell is that?”  
Thor stood firm, the setting sun glinting off his golden locks, a waiflike figure clutched in his arms. “This is my… sister.” He gave an awkward smile as he hefted the limp body further onto his shoulder. “May we come in?”  
What the fuck. His _sister?_ With that vampire paleness, the straight black hair, the spindly build, a sister of _Thor’s_? Tony stared. “Did you roofie that chick or something? Because there is no way the two of you are related.” It wasn’t like he would have a second ‘it’s complicated’ adopted sibling, I mean how ridiculous would that be? One was weird enough. “Because if you did, then I am absolutely not letting you in and absolutely _not_ letting her leave until she can do it under her own power.”  
“I… roofie?”  
Oh god of course he wouldn’t have a clue what the term meant. “Drugs. Did you drug her?” When Thor didn’t answer, he asked again. “Why is she unconscious?” Tony crossed his arms. Thor didn’t even _need_ the help to get a date! Why the hell would he decide to drug some chick just to get her into bed? And didn’t he have a girl already, that scientist, Foster, Forster, something like that, with the fascinating paper on portals?  
“I did not drug her.” Thor rumbled. The partially-free hand shifted the girl’s head gently back into his neck before he continued. “My sister is simply having a difficult time, and I offered to take care of her for the time being.”  
“You could not be more vague if you tried. _Why_ is she unconscious?”  
Thor heaved a sigh. “She would rather I not speak of the situation at hand if it may be avoided. But if you will not let us in, then…” His gaze slipped sideways to rest stony on the far wall. “Man of Iron, my sister is pregnant. She cannot stay on Asgard in this state, and what’s more, after Heimdall dropped us outside New York, she attempted a bit of magic which I suppose she should not have. This backfired rather intensely, possibly due to the fact that she is hosting a child, and she was rendered unconscious. I carried her the rest of the distance, and it would be good for her to rest. Will that knowledge suffice?”  
His sister. Tony stepped aside.  
“Fine.” Maybe he could extract more details later.  
Tony led the demigod’s meandering to an empty bedroom with dark, mirrored walls and a plush grey carpet, floor to ceiling windows looking out at the city, and Thor laid the girl out on the bed. As he did—how could Tony ever have thought the girl was waiflike? Her arms and back, maybe, but her stomach swelled out substantially—not quite enough for Tony to peg her as definitely pregnant, but the story was definitely plausible, especially with those bony limbs and cheeks as contrast. She was _seriously_ pretty, though, or elegant, despite the baby bump and the battered, grubby look of her clothes. Or the smear of dirt on her cheek, the tangled and greasy hair, the patches of shiny redness on her shoulder visible beneath the edge of her shirt, like a couple-months-old scar. Tony frowned. “Remind me where she was when you picked her up again?”  
Ignored. Thor waved him out the door instead, apparently so he could get his supposed sister into clean clothes. Tony made sure to ask JARVIS to keep an eye on them.

“Master Stark?”  
He’d almost even made it back to his workshop when JARVIS interrupted. “What?” Tony stopped walking. “Something to do with Thor and his… guest?”  
“Yes. Nothing inappropriate, Master Stark, only—” a pause. “Well, I think you’d best see for yourself. I believe this to be an occurrence of some interest to you, and it may help to explain this guest’s presence in the Tower.”  
A few more paces, and Tony flopped onto a fuzzy red couch, a flick of the wrist sending a hologram up before him. “Show me.” JARVIS surveilled everything that went on in the Tower, unless Tony told him specifically not to record something, such as his private workshop. Normally he deleted it after 48 hours, and nobody but the AI ever saw it. But occasionally—  
“What the hell?” Tony straightened. “JARVIS, what am I even looking at? Who is this, who the fuck did Thor bring into my Tower?”  
The girl was seated on that familiar bed on the holographic screen in front of him, leaning as unconscious as ever against her supposed brother as he gently slipped the sweatshirt from her torso. Beneath it on her back, traced in sickening clarity were layers upon layers of scars, the most recent probably weeks old, but still red and angry on that unhealthily pallid skin. Thor didn’t seem particularly surprised at the discovery, though he did wince when he peeked over her shoulder and saw it. The demigod’s lips moved as he said something JARVIS didn’t pick up, and then Thor slowly extracted himself from beneath the woman, laying her delicately on one side as he rose to rummage in a drawer.

Tony let out a breath. “At least he didn’t pick her up for sex.” His sister, he had to assume. Thor’s sister, who collapsed upon trying to do some kind of magic that was normally not a problem, otherwise Thor wouldn’t have been surprised by her collapse. Thor’s sister, who looked nothing like him, was at least a few months pregnant, and whose back was coated in half-healed whip marks, and whose frame looked emaciated everywhere but that swollen stomach. Tony bit down a wave of nausea. He had to keep watching. He had to know what sort of trouble this chick would be, and what happened, and who did this, because the thought of the timing needed to get these sorts of marks together set lead sinking in his gut.

Thor had returned to sit cross-legged on the bed, a jar of some sort of balm in one hand. A few gentle movements and the girl was settled on his lap again, her head propped up against his chest as he gazed over those frail shoulders at the poor chick’s ruined back. He ran soft fingers between the scars, as if checking for something—then frowned when they reached a few inches above one hip. What was that? Tony squinted. Some sort of… some sort of bite mark, where dull teeth larger than a human’s broke the skin in a perfect red ellipsis. Thor stood up again, leaving the girl face down against the covers while he removed the half-shredded black pants, revealing not only more whip scars but also a collection of relatively recent bite marks, mirrored on her neck and shoulders as on her hips. A frown. Evidently this was less expected, as were the burns decorating her thighs. Tony swallowed, one hand running through his hair in a nervous tic as he forced his eyes to stick to the hologram. Thor had definitely not known about this, at least. That was a comfort. The demigod’s expression darkened as he catalogued every scratch and bite and scar, a tight frown Tony had never seen before stretched across his face. Nevertheless, after a moment’s rage, Thor continued in his ministrations, carefully turning the woman’s head to one side before dabbing whatever that ointment was on each and every half-healed wound to shine faintly green where it glinted in the light. After a couple minutes more, Tony stopped the video, leaning forward with his head between his legs. God. What was he supposed to do with this? Who even knew how long it would be before the chick woke up? Thor didn’t seem to want to tell much of anything, but he couldn’t just ignore the whole mess. What if someone was looking for her? Tony couldn’t just stand there and let her be sent back to wherever the fuck Thor found her, not with this evidence of what awaited her. He had to be prepared. Which meant he had to know what happened, and who was angered by this poor girl’s disappearance, whether she _was_ Thor’s sister after all or not. Besides, Pepper would kill him if he didn’t help.

Okay.  
First things first, talk to Thor.  
And find that girl a doctor.  

 

Thor left Loki in the bedroom, tucked beneath satin sheets and glistening with ointment. He should have visited, the thought refused to leave him alone, should have made sure Loki was being treated with the bare minimum respect owed a prisoner. Just in case. Odin wouldn’t have liked it, Thor still shied away from that thought, but perhaps their father was wrong about this. To be imprisoned, yes, Loki had to deserve that if it kept others out of reach of her harm, and besides, she attacked Earth and ruined his coronation and almost _killed_ father and so much more, but… the rules on a prisoner’s rights were there for a reason. Even if Loki was technically Jotun, she was still Asgard’s prisoner. Or was it he, now? Loki had been attempting to shapeshift when they fell unconscious, before whatever made them go so stiff and knocked them out occurred.

Thor had just closed the door when JARVIS spoke.  
“Master Stark requests your presence at his workshop on the penthouse floor.”  
Thor paused. Why…?  
“It is about the woman accompanying you.”  
Of course. “I take it the Man of Iron was spying on me through your eyes, correct?” Suspecting him of dishonorable conduct, no doubt. Thor could hardly blame him, despite the pang which raced through him at the thought of such distrust. They were supposed to be friends. “Tell Stark I would appreciate it if he gave my sister and I some modicum of privacy in the future. If he insists, I suppose I will speak with him. But there is very little I can tell him of what occurred or who she is while my sibling remains asleep.”

~~~

Loki woke up feeling more comfortable than he had in far too long. Why was—oh stars, did he finally—no. His surroundings finally swam into focus, and with them the memories of how he’d gotten there. He escaped Asgard. Yes. He was free again, there was no collar hanging heavy from his neck, no unfamiliar hollow feeling where his magic crackled. The only symbols of his bondage left were the ever-present nausea from his rounded belly and lingering soreness along his back and thighs. Damn those guards, and their… overenthusiasm. Loki’s lower lip curled in a sneer. Odd, though, he noted, the scars did not hurt nearly so much as they had before. Perhaps it was the fact that he had finally been presented with the opportunity to sleep on a proper bed, rather than the hammock of his hidden cave or the hard pallet of his cell.  
… He still had breasts. Loki frowned. Hadn’t he shifted them away, switched back to his male form in all but that swollen abdomen upon reaching Midgard? Ah, he thought, now he remembered. He had tried—and the world had swooped sideways, and everything went black. … Something had to be wrong with his magic.  
A delicate probing at the spell in place on Asgard revealed that his illusion had finally snapped its tether to him, presumably while he had been lost to the seizure. He had perhaps another few hours before it dissolved for lack of power, as the small scrap of cloth he’d imbued as a magical battery was gradually drained. Very well. Loki stretched, lingering languorously in the gesture. These silk sheets truly were a luxury, he had to admit. Perhaps instead of changing his shape entirely this time, however, he had better stick to an illusion, something less suddenly strenuous until he figured out the source of the problem. The illusion on Asgard, after all, had posed little problem, so it must be something related to shapeshifting in particular, or more sudden expenditures of power.

 It was time to see where Thor had brought him.

One easy wave of power later, Loki drew himself to his feet. He glanced at his reflection in one of the bedroom’s many mirrors, a tall and wiry silhouette, made to look much more collected by the glamour draped across his skin, the image of an outfit halfway between armor and clothing concealing the sweatshirt and leather pants he was still wearing. Let’s see. His hair was still long, more so than normal from his long confinement, and untouched in shape by his illusion. It was always inadvisable to conceal something in an illusion smaller than its true form, after all, for anyone might accidentally run into those edges which poked out, disrupting the entire endeavor. Instead, Loki simply plucked a fine green cordon from the air and bound his hair up in a simple bun.  
He let out a breath.  
Midgard, this was, he could feel it in the very air around him.  
Of course. Thor would hardly bring him anywhere else. And someplace this richly decorated, this modern—he was in Stark Tower, wasn’t he? Damn it. From one prison to another. It only took three steps to reach the door, and he turned the knob, and—

Locked.

Until suddenly the door _slammed_ open, and through it came—  
“I _know_ you say you’re related, Thor, but seriously? I thought you knew better than this, I thought you knew better than to trust him, trust that, that slimy piece of _weasel_ _shit_ in a greasy haircut.”

Of course.  

Stark himself hadn’t known who he was, hadn’t recognized him until he put the illusion of masculinity into place, and if Thor had kindly kept his true identity secret upon arriving…  
The whirring of repulsor engines.  
Cold gauntlets smashed into him, crushing him up against the wall of the room, heedless of the dent it left in the wall. Loki couldn’t help but flinch, though he restrained himself from trying to escape. He’d had his fill of being pushed around, yet here he stood (dangled, really) in the heart of the Avenger’s lair, weak and barely armed. He could not afford defiance. Loki’s teeth dug into the inside of his cheek, arresting the automatic protests in his throat. He had done nothing wrong. Thor would not let him come to harm. Would he?  
It almost killed Loki to lift his hands slowly to the wall above his head, to flick his gaze steady from the mask before him to where his brother’s hand gripped along the scarlet armor.  
Take it easy.  
Surrender.  
He did his best to suppress the churning in his gut. Do nothing, he repeated to himself. Do nothing, and you can always break yourself out later, but one wrong move now, and—

“Man of Iron.” Thor’s voice was quiet. “I spoke only truth. I know you hold no love for Loki, but she—or he,” he amended, “is under my protection and my guard alike.” Blue eyes bored into Loki’s, a warning sign in clearest guise. “If any are to punish him for his misdeeds, and many crimes there are for which he should be punished, it will not be you. Loki is my responsibility.”  
“He is _clearly_ evil,” Stark exclaimed. “He is a murderer! A mass murderer, and a war criminal. He mind-controls people, he tried to _conquer the planet_ , and thinks we’re some utterly inferior species. I mean you heard him in Stuttgart! _Evil_ does not _deserve_ whatever the hell it is you brought him here for.” Iron man drew back his palm, as if readying it to strike. “What he _deserves_ is to rot for all eternity. Or better yet, he deserves to d—”  
A bare hand clamped down over that gauntlet, digging fingers into the articulated plates and wrenching it from where it pointed straight at Loki’s head until it faced the ground, wedged between Thor’s bicep and his ribs. “Kill him and you never will be safe again.”  
The repulsor wound down.  
After a tense silence, Stark spoke, his other arm still pressed to the base of Loki’s throat. The man let out a breath. “Are you _threatening_ me?”  
“I am asking you to listen,” came the returning rumble. “and informing you of my duty to my sibling.” Thor seemed to have remained surprisingly calm, given the situation. “A justly tried and sentenced prisoner is a ward of the state, with no more rights beyond that bare minimum extending to every sentient being, and no privilege to defend themself. It falls thus upon the state to defend him. Even if he were not my brother or a prince, the penalty for killing Loki while he is a prisoner acting within what few rights he retains is tantamount to death, even excluding the fact that he is with child.” A pause. “If you would rather he roam Midgard with only me as guardian than languish within your defended and ever-surveilled halls, you may require that we leave.” Thor wasn’t smiling.  
“This guy almost conquered the Earth, and you’re talking about law.” Every trace of amusement was gone from Tony’s voice, the helmet of the suit still closed and glaring.  
“Rest assured, Man of Iron, if Loki steps outside his bounds, I will take action and he will regret that choice. But I have nowhere else to bring him.” The hand still on the armor’s shoulder relaxed. “Please, Stark.” Thor was never one to fake sincerity, but now his voice night trembled with it. “Allow me to explain.”

Three seconds passed. Four. Five, and then— Some realization crossed across Tony’s face inside the mask, and the repulsor arm loosened in its struggle against Thor’s strength. “Fine.” He stepped back, the mask came off. Loki, shaking, stayed exactly where he was.  
Tony glared. “Now tell me exactly why you brought Loki of all people here _,_ and why I shouldn’t send him straight to Fury’s agents.”

~~~

              When JARVIS informed Tony Stark that the mysterious woman had turned into Loki, his first instinct was to panic.

His _second_ instinct was to order the AI to tell Bruce the same thing, because he was the only other Avenger in the Tower and he’d beat up Loki once before; and also to make sure Pepper was still out of the building at that conference in Berlin.

It was when he got to the third realization that Tony felt the sweetness of adrenaline drip to fill his chest, hauling relative clarity of thought in its wake. His nearest set of armor snapped to his skin in under a minute, and he was running. Before long, Loki was pinned against the wall and Thor was yelling something and Tony couldn’t quite place why something didn’t feel right about this, didn’t feel like getting ~~revenge~~ justice on a criminal, didn’t feel quite the way it should. But then Thor started talking about law, and how could he _say_ that when thousands of people had _died_ to Loki’s actions in New York? It wasn’t even Earth’s laws! Prisoner’s rights, ward of the state, how could Thor just stand there and look him in the eyes and say that Loki deserved to be, to be _coddled_? To be anywhere but dead or in a cell with a cot and a pot?  
That was when the fourth instinct really started to kick in.  
The girl. Sure, Loki looked better when Tony first burst in, but he’d evidently given up on the illusion when Tony pressed him to the wall, making the whole thing warp and waver green and gold. Under it, he was, or she was just as injured as the night before, gaunt and pale and sickly—Tony cursed silently, to himself. She wasn’t fighting. They’d seen that sort of thing before, yes, but this time she _really_ wasn’t fighting, just shaking and staring at Thor with her hands above her head and her eyes so big and scared. Tony didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want that nauseating intuition to be true, that maybe, _maybe_ this wasn’t just a ploy.

He tried not to think about it. Maybe Loki was faking. Maybe this wasn’t Loki. Maybe it was, and Thor had just been mind-controlled into helping her and Tony could turn them both into SHIELD and get this whole mess over with.

He didn’t want to have to deal with that fourth and final instinct being right.

But—Thor sure sounded like it was real. That or the mind-controlled option, but Thor sounded practically more serious than Tony had ever heard him before.  
… He had to consider it.  
It made him _sick_ to think about, but you know what made Tony more sick? The thought that Loki actually wasn’t faking, that this actually was just some woman who’d been, who’d been tortured or whatever this was and had managed to find help in Thor, and Tony was just going to kick her out. Or the thought that Thor was mind-controlled, and he wasn’t doing anything about it. You know. Either way. But in both cases, Tony couldn’t fix anything if all he did was throw them both out, without even giving them a chance to prove their sincerity, even if it gave him worse nightmares than he’d had since shortly after the Battle of New York.  He swallowed.  
“Fine.” Goddamnit. Tony backed off, eyes fixed on the woman who was probably Loki. He had to at least let them explain.

It was right about then that Bruce walked in.

 

 

So it was definitely Loki.

Because Bruce walked in, and froze, ears already turning green. Loki, on the other hand, took one look at him and blanched—and took two shaking steps backward from the door before Thor grabbed her(?) arm to hold the other god before him.  
“I- is that Loki?” Bruce stuttered. “JARVIS, did you say _Loki_ was here? I—”  
“It is not what you think,” Thor intoned. His other hand fell to clasp his sister’s other shoulder as Loki seemed to shrink against him. “Loki is here as my prisoner, and my ward. He is under my protection, Banner, but he will not harm anyone while he is here or I will not hesitate to punish him.”  
“… he?” Tony frowned.  
“Furthermore, Dr. Banner, he is both pregnant and injured, and if you will allow me but a few minutes, I can explain why I have brought him to you.”  
The doctor was silent for a long moment. His hand clenched against the doorframe, leaving deep gouges in it. Finally, he took a deep breath, and acquiesced. “Talk, then. Why is he here, or, or why is she here? Isn’t Loki supposed to be in some Asgardian prison for everything they’ve done?”  
Thor dragged his sibling to the bed. Sat down beside him. “Loki?” His arm still clasped about the woman’s shoulders. “I did not wish to reveal the details without your consent, particularly since I do not actually know them. Now, however, would be an excellent time to open up.” He turned to her. “If they cannot trust that you mean the Earth no harm, I will be forced to take you somewhere more immediately confining, and where I cannot supervise nor see to your well-being. I do not expect SHIELD’s embrace to be any more welcoming than Asgard’s, and I will hunt you either way if you escape. You cannot veil yourself from Heimdall forever, brother. So speak.”

Loki hesitated. After a long moment, his hands unclenched from where they had twined themselves in his brother’s cape, resting on his lap instead in a mockery of calm. Thor was right. He could not hide for long like this, and as he grew closer to term, his seidhr would grow less and less reliable. He could not afford to escape until the child was born, at the least, and would be far safer and more comfortable here than under SHIELD’s thumb.  
If these Avengers were to believe him, he would need to be vulnerable.

“As you say, Doctor Banner,” Loki cleared his throat. Cursed the squeaking of his voice beneath the influence of terror, it would do him no good. He moistened his lips before continuing. “I was in an Asgardian prison, sentenced to about twenty thousand years—far longer than a standard Aesir lifetime, to be clear.” He stopped himself. Now was not the time to rant about the failures of Asgard’s so-called legal system, this was not a sympathetic audience. “I was allowed no visitors beyond Odin and Thor, even our mother was banned from my corrupting presence. Thor never visited.” A bitter smile. “Odin never cared. In any case, it is customary on Asgard to allow prisoners to shorten their sentence by paying in blood or labor, if they so desire. Obviously I was not allowed the latter for fear that I might escape. But given that no matter how much I prostrated myself before the guards I would be old and dead by the time my sentence let out, I chose not to opt to pay my penalty in blood either. By law, such punishment cannot be required or coerced, only presented as an option.” Loki could not keep his hand from worming back into his brother’s cape, an old gesture of anxiety and reassurance. “Apparently, I am not sufficiently Asgardian for the law to be respected.” His throat was tight. “Asgard’s cells prevent my magic from reaching outside them. I could not stop it. I have never been particularly liked on that planet, so this was no surprise. Every day or two, the guards would take me from my cell and beat their wrath out on my skin, and sometimes more.” Stories always worked best if they held a little bit of truth to them. Loki wished there was less truth and more fiction to this. “One day their contraceptive spell began to fail, and it was not replaced for many weeks. I became pregnant.” Fists clenched, eyes boring with faked dispassion at the floor. “I escaped. I hid for some time in a horse’s form before the embryo became too well-defined for such shapeshifting to be safe, and relocated myself to a hidden cave. But I have not the supplies to hide myself there indefinitely, and pregnancy drains my magic greatly.” Not so greatly, especially not yet, but better for him to be underestimated. “Eventually Heimdall found me, and I pleaded with him not to simply return me to the prison, at which point he summoned my brother instead.” Loki did his best to keep that growing smile to himself. “Thor brought me here.” He glared. That distaste was true enough, at least. He may be glad to be in Thor’s custody instead of any other’s, but the Avengers were not exactly comfortable to be around.

“Why?”  
“I cannot simply bring him back to Asgard!” Thor groaned. “Loki has caused many deaths, but so have us all. If Asgard were able to treat him as any other prisoner, that would be one thing, but evidently they cannot. I will not stand by while my brother is tortured for the rest of his life, all by our father’s blessing. I will not let my own niece or nephew be raised in prison, either, or separated from their parent against their will.”  
“Can you not just abort it?” Bruce pressed. “I mean, surely you have that technology on Asgard. That doesn’t fix the entire problem I suppose, but at least it would be something.”  
Loki could not hold back the rage which flooded his bones. “ _Odin_ is the one who deems me capable only of destruction,” he hissed. “Odin is the one seeking to control me, all my life, but this? This life, this bundle of potential is a gift which he _cannot_ control, this child is _mine_ and to give it up would be surrender.” Oops. At some point during his speech Loki had managed to stand, the fury radiating from his voice. It would not likely help their cause. “I care not what others do, but Odin will not take from me the joys of birth.”  
Odd. The Man of Iron looked but surprised by his outburst, and Banner seemed to have grown thoughtful. Loki would have expected them to be incensed. Maybe that fear was why his own pulse raced beneath his fingers, not simply because of his own quickly-fading fury.

“Well I can guarantee you, SHIELD definitely isn’t gonna be any nicer. More scientific, yes. More pleasant, not so much.” Banner seemed to have calmed down a bit, the green mostly faded from his skin. “But Thor, why Earth? You have access to other planets, right?”  
The demigod shook his head. “I have spent little time outside the reach of Yggdrasil. Of the Nine Realms along its branches, however, I already know Asgard is not safe for Loki. Jotunheim would either kill him or follow his lead, even if they did not inevitably fail to hold him. Vanaheim has not the technology to contain one of my brother’s stubborn hardiness, though it could likely deal with the magic, Nidavellir would treat him worse than Asgard, and Svartalfheim would kill us both on sight were it not so utterly deserted. Niflheim in theory could imprison him, but only in the same way it contains all who reach it, and Muspelheim would send the both of us up in flames. Alfheim is far too vulnerable to iron for its prisons to hold Loki for long. This leaves only Midgard. Besides, I have business here on Earth, and cannot watch him if Loki is on another planet.”  
A sigh. “Perfect.”  
“Believe me, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either.” Loki murmured.  
“How do we know he’s not just making all this up?” Tony’s arms were crossed, his eyes cold. “I mean Reindeer Games here isn’t exactly known for telling the truth.”  
Thor frowned. “I have verified what can be verified. It was Heimdall who informed me of Loki’s current state, and Heimdall sees all and would not lie to me. Stark, you too know his injuries were not illusory, for you saw the footage last night, did you not?”  
“I did…”  
“Oh for gods’ sakes,” Loki glared. “I know you have pregnancy tests of some kind here, you may as well go ahead and perform them. As for injuries,” He twisted in his brother’s grip a moment to remove his shirt, “I may have escaped about four months ago, but without sufficient food, what little seidhr is not taken up by hiding or the embryo I have had to use to substitute nutrition. The wounds have hardly healed.” He turned, revealing the angry marks along that spindly back. “My brother is a fool, but he has managed to learn enough about magic to be able to tell you there is no illusion on me now.”  
“Thor?” Bruce prompted after a few more seconds passed.  
The demigod hesitated. “Loki, your older scars.”  
Oh. Right. Loki could not shift away existing scars or alterations to his shapes, and so instead had taken to coating them with an illusion for so long he could hardly even remember that it _was_ an illusion. A moment later, green rippled down his skin, revealing a myriad of old white marks along his back, beneath the recent lashes. Loki swallowed. At least the centuries-old burn there on his shoulders should be covered. He kept his face pressed against his brother’s shoulder. If nothing else, perhaps disgust would keep the humans from feeling too afraid of him to let him stay.  
A gentle hand stroked the back of his head. “This is Loki as he truly is,” Thor spoke after but a moment’s concentration. “Tis true I have no gift for magic, but Frigga did have a gift for teaching. No illusion lies upon his skin.” Pale hands curled in his hair, about his neck. Thor did his best to feel calm, rather than uncomfortable with the evidence of all his brother’s injury before him. “Tony, Banner, please.”  
Stark took a step forward. “Loki’s illusions can’t stand being touched, right?”  
For the most part, true. It was not impossible, but he did not have the power nor the concentration now to build one. Another step, a click as a gauntlet was removed, and a warm hand pressed gently to his skin. Loki jumped. “ _Warn_ me, will you?” he bit out.  
“Warn you and maybe you can compensate for it.” Stark ran his fingers lightly along his back, the rise and fall of aching lines. Into the silence, he finally answered. “Feels real to me.” The hand fell away. “Look, just… put your shirt back on. Then we can talk.”

~~~

It was a few days before they managed to actually _take_ an ultrasound. Tony Stark may have some serious medical staff in the Tower, after all, but they were mostly stocked for dealing with injuries, not… much of anything else. In the interest of not making it obvious to SHIELD precisely who it was he held in custody, they couldn’t take Loki to a normal doctor, and even a priority order for the missing equipment took time.

During that time, the god had been surprisingly well-behaved.  
Tony was confused as all hell by the frequent illusions making Loki look male or female or somewhere in between, but Bruce had adjusted to it pretty quickly, following Thor’s example in using whatever terms matched Loki’s current form. He _had_ insisted on keeping Loki in the Big Guy’s room, if with the addition of an actual bed, but only because Tony didn’t exactly have prison cells set up in the Tower. Despite that, Loki seemed to be mostly staying within the negotiated rules: They never left the Tower, didn’t even exit the room without an escort, which JARVIS kept a careful eye on. Thor spent a lot of time walking with her around the Tower, or just sitting in the same room as her while she read. He also insisted on taking his sibling out of the room for mealtimes. After about a day of sitting in the locked room being utterly bored, Loki had made it clear that she would not stay within it without something to do, prompting Pepper to provide a StarkPad crammed with books—fiction, sci-fi, a handful of plays, even a few medical textbooks, though nothing which they thought might give Loki any dangerous ideas. It worked.

Neither Avenger could really let go of their tenseness around her, but—things were getting better.

And now here Loki was, lying down and desperately avoiding the awkwardness of steady eye contact as the doctor shoved a transducer wand up their vagina. It still wasn’t very far into the pregnancy, as far as Asgardians went, in fact the only reason their pregnancy was visible was because they were otherwise half wasting away from lack of food, so they’d guessed a transabdominal ultrasound would not yet be able to detect it. Of course, it was far enough along that Loki knew. They’d felt the second organism’s seidhr stirring from the moment they tried to change back into Aesir form back in the cave.  
“Um.”  
Loki’s gaze trailed lazily up to the doctor, staring at the screen. They smirked. Around them, Loki could hear an abrupt intake of breath from their brother, a whispered “ _what the fuck”_ from Stark. Banner was silent, eyes fixed on the image shown.  
The scientist cleared his throat. “Uh, Loki?”  
A grin managed to claw its way across their lips as they glanced over at him, one eyebrow raised, the very picture of innocence. “Yes, Dr. Banner?”  
Stark interrupted, his voice strangled. “An eight-legged—”  
“Are you aware that you’re pregnant with a horse?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Also, I have put way too much thought into this au and might have to make it an actual series. There isn't nearly enough of Loki being a genderfluid, chaotic neutral icon on this site and I have *so many ideas*.  
> Let me know if you folks want me to, I guess? 
> 
> Good luck!  
> -Ent


End file.
